6. Adam

It wasn't often that I thought back to middle school these days, but sitting there alone at the trivia table had brought those memories back screaming, in full force.

Week after week, the gym coach, Mr. Matthews, would choose two star athletes to pick members for whatever sport we were playing that week. And every week, I'd be one of the last people picked. Dead last, most of the time. Soccer, basketball, baseball, flag football—it didn't matter. I'd be standing there, looking down at the washed-out grass, trying not to look as pathetic as I felt. Even though I eventually filled out and got taller, I'd been a scrawny, nerdy kid until middle school, and nobody wanted me—whether it was for throwing a football or at the lunch tables later on.

Sitting at the trivia table alone tonight hadn't quite been that bad, because I was an adult now and I knew that technically, I could leave whenever the hell I wanted.

But until Chase showed up, I'd felt like I was plunged right back into my old school days.

Now that he was sitting across from me, I just had to figure out how to act normal around him. The way Chase looked at me made me feel so many things at once. He paid more attention to me, which I liked, even if it made me feel like a crazed animal inside.

I breathed deep, remembering all of the advice I'd tried to commit to memory.

Compliment people.

Let them know they're appreciated.

They can't always read your mind.

"Thank you for coming to join me, Chase," I told him. "I'll do my best. I like to think I'm pretty okay at trivia."

"Bet you're pretty damn good at it," he said.

"I do enjoy watching Jeopardy."

"Hey, you," a man said, coming up and leaning in to give Chase a kiss on the cheek. "Where have you been, Chase?"

"Hey, Frankie," he said, looking up at the guy, who was about six foot five, stocky, and had sandy-blond hair. "I've been around."

"We missed you at Bolt the other night," Frankie told Chase, not looking at me. "Come hang out with us over at the bar."

Chase nodded at him. "Maybe I'll stop by later. This is Adam, by the way, and I'm going to be doing trivia with him tonight. Adam, this is my friend Frankie."

"Hi, there," Frankie said, giving me a quick glance as one of his friends pulled him away toward the bar. "Never thought I'd see you doing trivia, Chase. Look at you go. See you later, I hope."

"I'll see you around," Chase said. "Have fun."

"Don't be a stranger," the guy said, giving Chase a wave as he walked away.

Right as Frankie was walking by, a group of women passed by and two of them stopped to chat with Chase, too. Another guy waved at him as he entered the bar, and over the course of the next five minutes, I realized I was sitting across from one of the most popular guys around town.

He kindly introduced me to everyone that came over, but each time, the focus was all on him.

People really liked Chase.

And he was equally nice to everyone, even if he had to politely decline multiple requests from people who were trying to drag him off to the bar or out to other clubs down in Denver.

After the people had filtered through, he turned back to me and smiled, an apology already in his eyes.

"Sorry. Didn't expect it would be so packed in here tonight."

"It's okay," I said, shaking my head. "I'm happy to just hang back and observe. I'm better at that than I am at talking, anyway. Are you sure you don't want to go join your friends?"

Chase looked at me like I was nuts. "There's nowhere I'd rather be right now than doing trivia with you. We're going to rock it, Adam."

That made me feel warm and fuzzy, despite myself. Even if he might be taking a little bit of pity on me because I was alone, it still made me feel special. And it had been a long time since I'd felt that.

I reached to take off my jacket and Chase looked over, pausing for a moment and staring out at me.

"What's up?"

"Wait. Is that—are we—"

I looked between the two of us and realized why he was gawking.

"We're wearing the same shirt," I said.

"I just got this shirt. I really, really like it," he told me.

"I just got it, too," I said. "At the ranch market on the end of Spruce Street?"

He nodded, his eyes lighting up. "Softest cotton I've ever felt. Damn, we look good as twins, don't we?"

"You look better in it than I do."

"Shucks," he said in a joking way. "I really am so glad you're here, Adam. I had just given up my search of trying to find someone to fuck when I saw you."

I ignored the heat that flared through me hearing Chase talk about that.

I ran my fingertips over a knot in the wooden table. "No one here you want to bring home?"

He looked at me for a moment, a teasing glance in his eyes. "Well, I could take you home."

I swallowed hard, feeling my cock perk up despite the fact that it had no right to. He couldn't possibly mean that, right?

"Me?" I managed to say.

"Just so you could tutor me in math, of course," Chase said with a wink.

Right. Okay. So he had been joking.

"I'm always available for that."

"Or I could teach you how to paint," he said. "Other than sex, I'm not good at much, besides art and talking."

"Right. Two of the things I'm worst at."

Chase shook his head. "I pride myself on being able to teach anyone how to paint. I could teach you."

"No chance," I said. "I could barely paint in kindergarten, and I definitely can't now."

"I could have you painting a beautiful sunset in under an hour," he said, a glint in his eyes. "Promise."

"You like to paint as much as you like working with cameras?"

"If it's art, I like it," Chase said. "As you can see from my ridiculous hair, I have a bit of a love affair with color."

"Your hair isn't ridiculous at all," I said. "I love it. The light blue streak with the blond is so unique and cool."

He looked at me from under his lashes, and the pleased look on his face felt like a little reward for me.

"I always assume guys like you would hate my hair," he admitted. "I used to dye it every color of the rainbow and put tons of glitter in it when I went out to clubs, but now I've settled on the blue. I love it."

"Why would you think guys like me would hate it?" I asked. "And what does guys like me mean, anyway? Should I be offended?"

He laughed. "Not offended. It's a compliment," he said. "I guess I meant… smart guys. Really successful guys. Guys who look like they could be from an ad in a business magazine and would never touch a bottle of hair dye. Guys who seem like they'd be really fucking good at trivia."

I settled back on my seat, nodding. "I hope I don't disappoint you once the trivia starts."

"Not possible," he told me, sipping on his orangey-pink drink. "How did you end up deciding to come here tonight?"

"I looked up the Jade Brewery website when you told me about it the other day," I told him. "I like trivia nights, but I have to admit I didn't realize it was group trivia only."

Chase waved a hand through the air. "There are no hard-and-fast rules here. On the last trivia night, there was an old woman here on her own. Hell, I think there was also a teenage boy trivia prodigy on his own team, too. He looked like he was about fourteen, but he got second place."

"I'm trying to do more things that I wouldn't normally do," I finally admitted. "This definitely falls under that category. Guess I'll have my work cut out for me tonight."

"Guess you will," Chase said. He took another drink, and my eyes naturally gravitated toward his lips again.

Fuck, I was hopeless when I was attracted to a guy.

Even the way he took a drink filled me with some primal urge, like I couldn't help imagining the straw was my cock between his lips.

It was difficult enough to chat with people when I wasn't imagining what they'd look like sucking me off.

"Good evening everybody," the trivia organizer called out, a woman with grey hair and a big, easy smile standing on the little wooden dance floor with a microphone. She went on to read out the rules for the night and explain how each round would be scored.

Instantly I felt myself relax. Games tended to have rules, like numbers, and anytime I had a chance to play games socially, it made everything easier.

The TV screens along the back wall of the brewery pulled up the first trivia question: which building was the first skyscraper ever built?

"I know this," I said.

"Good, because I sure don't," Chase said. "The Empire State Building?"

"No," I said, thinking through what I knew. "It's in Chicago, no question. Some sort of insurance building… Home Insurance Building, I think?"

Chase held up his hands. "I trust you with my life on this one, Adam. If you think it's that building, let's go with it."

I grabbed the sheet of paper, writing down the answer to question one.

When the second question was announced, though, I knew I was screwed.

What was the name of Madonna's first album?

"Shit," I muttered under my breath.

Chase snapped his fingers. "Don't even begin to worry," he said, gently taking the pencil from my hand. "I've got this."

He wrote down the answer—he was certain that the name of her first album was simply Madonna.

"Damn," I said. "Impressive."

The following question was my favorite so far.

What is the name of the largest constellation in the sky?

"I love looking at the stars. I've got this one down," I told Chase.

"It's Hydra, right?" he asked.

I met his eyes. "Right," I said. "Wow, you know about the constellations?"

"Some of them," he said with a smile. "I love looking at the stars, too. My brother Jamie and I used to drive out to the desert in California, where you can see everything at night. We had this book of constellations. We'd look for hours."

Something lit up inside me. I rarely met anyone who even gave a damn about the night sky, let alone knew a little about constellations.

"I'm a bit of a geek about the stars," I admitted. "But that shouldn't be a surprise at this point, I guess. I'm kind of nerdy about a lot of things."

"How cool," Chase said.

I'd never been called cool before, but somehow, from Chase, I believed he meant it.

The next three questions were slam-dunks for me. One was a math question, another one was physics, and the next was a very standard trivia question asking what the largest mountain in the US was. Most people, especially here in Colorado, tended to think of local tall mountains, but I'd long since known the tallest was Denali, in Alaska.

The final question in the first round was another that had me stumped, though.

What was the name of the first non-silent film?

I furrowed my brow as I stared at the question. "I feel like I've learned this before in some history class, but I don't remember the name."

I looked back down at the table and saw that Chase had already grabbed the pencil and was scrawling out an answer: The Jazz Singer.

"I don't know much, but I know film and cinema," Chase said, giving me a nod of confidence. "I was an art kid in high school. We've got this in the bag."

Chase held up his hand for a high-five. As our hands touched he clasped my palm in his, giving it a shake, and heat bloomed throughout my body.

It had been too long since I'd socialized outside of work, but even longer since anyone had touched me.

"Ten-minute break, everyone, and then we'll get started on round two," the woman leading trivia said. People started to get up from the tables, mingle, and refresh their drinks at the bar.

"So when's the last time you were out at a bar?" Chase asked.

I bit the inside of my cheek, thinking. "It was sometime near the end of grad school," I said. "It was a bar in Denver that had a lot of businessmen in it."

"Were you there for a trivia night?"

I shook my head. "I was on a date with a woman from my statistics class."

Chase's eyes went wide for a moment, and then it seemed like he forced himself to hide his surprise. "A date with a woman," he repeated.

I nodded. "She was nice. Really good at stats, too. She ended up moving to Berlin for a teaching position."

Chase scrubbed his palms over his face. "I'm such an idiot."

"Wait, why?"

"I was over here thinking about asking you if you had a boyfriend," Chase said. "I have a nasty habit of just assuming every hot guy I meet is attracted to men."

I felt my cheeks heat and instantly I wished I could force all of that blood back down out of my face. I had always been prone to visible blushing. Sometimes when I felt the heat creep up to my face, it only made me feel more embarrassed, which led to more blushing. A vicious cycle.

My cock had also perked up at Chase saying that I was "a hot guy," but at least a half-chub in my pants was easy to hide under the table.

I cleared my throat. "Oh. Well, you're, um, you're not… an idiot."

He waved a hand. "You're too nice. Thanks, Adam. I still feel dumb for assuming, but good to know you're straight."

I swallowed. My heart rate was kicking up. "Well, I'm not."

Chase's eyes flickered to meet mine again. "Oh?"

"I'm not straight," I told him, summoning the words from whatever place inside me that could ignore how weird it felt to talk about myself. "At first, when I was a kid, I thought I was straight. Then when I was a teenager I was certain that I must have been ‘turning gay,' when I started to realize that I was also attracted to men. Then eventually in college I had to accept that I can be attracted to just about anyone. Not that I'm good at talking to people regardless of their gender."

I felt like I was babbling, even though I had probably only been talking for thirty seconds tops. I wanted to keep adding clarifications and anecdotes, but I shut my mouth instead.

Chase looked visibly relieved. "I wasn't trying to pry, but thank you for being comfortable enough to tell me that."

"Of course."

"Damn," Chase said, looking me up and down. "You're hot and bisexual. You must get some serious action on the apps."

"Dating apps?" I asked.

He gave me a pointed stare. "You're not on dating apps?"

"No," I said, shifting on the bench seat. "I'm kind of a lone wolf, if you can't tell."

I didn't mention the most personal part of my sexuality journey: that I'd still never had sex with another guy. I'd never so much as kissed another guy, even though I'd wanted to since I was a young teen and I was twenty-eight now. The stars had never aligned, and even though there had been a couple of guys in high school and college that I would have been into, I either hadn't known if they were gay or hadn't known if they had any interest in me. I'd been with two women before, one in college and one in grad school, and both had been sweet but short-lived relationships.

But in the past year, I liked that my OnlyShots videos mostly had a male audience. It was part of the thrill that kept me uploading. A craving for male attention and attraction that I'd never been able to fulfill before in real life.

But if anyone in my real life ever found out, I'd probably spontaneously combust into white-hot flames.

Chase was just shaking his head, gazing at me while he finished the dregs of his drink. "You could have anyone you wanted, and you're not even on the apps. That's some smart-guy swagger, right there."

"I promise you, I can't get anyone I want."

He raised an eyebrow, casting doubt. "Bullshit."

"I can barely make small talk with a cashier, let alone people on dates."

"You've been doing great with me."

I cocked my head to one side, considering. "You don't count."

"Oh, I don't?" Chase said, a cocky little grin coming over his lips.

"That did not come out how I meant it to," I said. "It's a compliment, and it kind of came out sounding like an insult. All I mean is that you're not as hard to talk to as most people are."

Christ, he was one of the most attractive guys that had ever spoken with me. I hoped to hell that he wasn't going to think I was insulting him.

"So I'm different," he said, batting his eyes and doing a cute little dance while sitting down. "I do take that as a compliment."

"Well, yes, you're different," I told him. "You're clearly a good talker. But you also showed interest in me. A lot of people don't do that. They seem to avoid me, almost."

"Because a lot of people are probably intimidated by you," he said. "You should know that, Mr. Genius Mathematician."

"The thought of anyone being intimidated by me is like a German Shepherd being intimidated by a kitten. A shy kitten, with no claws."

"Trust me, you come off much more like a tiger than a kitten," Chase said, giving me a look that made heat flood through my whole body. "I'm going to go grab another drink, do you want anything?"

"I'll take another of the summer ale," I said. "Thank you."

I watched Chase as he walked over to the bar, and I let my eyes linger on his ass, which looked far too good in the jeans he was wearing.

While Chase waited in line at the bar, chatting with all sorts of his friends, I slid out my phone and thumbed over to the OnlyShots app. I'd uploaded a video right before I summoned the courage to come out here to the brewery, and I wanted to see if it had gotten any response. I got a little excited when I saw a comment from one of my more consistent viewers.

ChillyIcyBlue: You only get better. My favorite video yet.

I had no idea who he was, but he always commented with sweet things. His profile had no photo, but it said he was male and thirty years old.

There were a few other comments, but they were the more generic types—a few eggplant emojis, a kissy face emoji, and a comment that just said "i wuld suk that," which was a nice sentiment even with its cave-man style spelling.

I needed to kill time, so I did something rare: I tapped on ChillyIcyBlue's comment and started to write out a reply, letting myself get carried away.

For all I knew, ChillyIcyBlue could be a totally unattractive creep who I'd never get along with in real life.

But I liked to think we'd get along.

I sent off the reply, feeling some fleeting moment of connection to a complete virtual stranger.

AdamDix: You're the sweetest, ChillyIcyBlue. Appreciate the continued support… and you know I'll keep coming for you.